FA must follow Spain’s blueprint for success

Friday 9 July 2010 11:04 BST

I write this from a sand dune in southern Portugal, staring out at a vast green ocean.

Three sunburnt Englishmen are punting a beach ball around the flat beach below. Africa lies somewhere over the horizon. About half a world south from here, in Soccer City, Johannesburg, a World Cup Final approaches.

The Portuguese will be honorary Dutchmen this Sunday. In our small village, locals will drag televisions outside whitewashed cafes and cram around red plastic tables to drink freezing beer at 1 a bottle and cheer on the flying Oranje men. Anyone but the Spanish.

A victory for the Netherlands would be some small revenge for Portugal's own last-16 defeat. A defeat for Spain would be a small, consolatory score in a long running neighbourly ding-dong.

And what about those of us without an axe to grind? (The only axe I wish to grind during this World Cup is into the head of whichever infernal ad-man created the ITV spots in which cars are playing football. Cars! Playing football! Hilarious...') Do we root for the intricate Spaniards, with their tightly funnelled, triangulated midfield craft? Or for the zippier, rangier Dutch: less lavishly gifted but somehow more streetwise and enterprising?

My instinct, although I'm gonna keep my mouth shut round here, is to plump with the Spanish. Talent deserves fulfilment. This is not quite the World Cup that Fifa wanted — a risible shambles for the African teams and a vaguely uncomfortable triumph for flaxen-headed Europe and the old New World — so in searching for a worthy winner I'm drawn towards the team that have done most to define footballing excellence in the current age.

Spain v Netherlands is hardly a progressive final. It is, rather, a final to be contested between Old World football aristocrats, whose history and heritage is woven together, through a 40-year old ideology of total football and the artistic axis joining Amsterdam and Barcelona.

Oddly, given Sunday's opposition, Spain are the team who play the most classically Dutch football.

They are standard bearers for the ideals of the Netherlands teams of 1974 and 1978. They are the intellectual heirs of Cruyff and Michels, distilled through FC Barcelona, whose star has waxed as that of Ajax has waned.

True, the Dutch themselves have become more than their parts during this tournament and proven their worth by dumping an unloveable Brazil side out of the competition. But they are merely having a good tournament.

Spain have the potential to complete something rather greater. If they complete the ultra-rare World Cup/European Championships double, they can be remembered alongside France 1998/2000 and West Germany 1972/1974. Probably the best team in the world and symbolic of their age's best mode of play. In Spain's case, that mode is midfield heavy, with their four attacking players defying traditional categorisation between midfielders and forwards in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

It demands a full rounded skill-set from virtually every player. Even a defensive dog like Sergio Busquets plays the ball well.

Spain's style also cherishes possession and suits players with distributive minds, which is why their playmaker Xavi has been so heavily used in South Africa.

Opta, the world's leading football nerd, report that Xavi has touched the ball every 46 seconds on average during this tournament; more frequently than any other player. (And by the way, don't believe that BBC and ITV commentators pull this sort of stat out of their massive brains — try following @OptaJoe on Twitter to see where the material originates.)

Whether Spain would beat 2000-era France or early-1970s West Germany, I'll leave you to mull. (Anyone who wants to send me a match report of a fictional encounter? I'll send a bottle of tasty booze to the best I receive.) One thing I will suggest, however, is England were lucky to get knocked out before they had to face Iniesta and Co.

Hopefully the suits at the Football Association will be watching Spain on Sunday and thinking what can we learn?' Although given the FA suits' track record, they'll probably think I wonder if Mr Capello would like even more money to set up England as a mid-90s Serie A side and yell "press" a lot in pidgin English'.

What they might observe, if not, is Spain's players are homegrown at one or two clubs, managed by someone who speaks the lingo and arranged in a formation reflective of the way the modern game is most successfully played.

The first of those points is a difficult, long-term structural issue in English football, which will be solved only through consensus or terrible confrontation with the Premier League.

The second two are down to not hiring clowns for managers and keeping them on when they fail. A Euro is burning a hole in my pocket. Time for a Sagres.